Despite the bleak headlines about Iraq, conflict in Lebanon, and nuclear confrontations with both North Korea and Iran, 2006 was a good year globally. GDP growth in developing nations surged forward at a 7% pace, while overall global economic growth remained high at close to 4%. Long term economic growth is the only available means to decrease absolute poverty; in India, growth around 7% per year reduced overall poverty by 10% over the last decade. To be sure, much of developing nations’ current growth is owed to rising commodity prices, but in many nations this influx of revenue is being harnessed more effectively than in the past.
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Month: December 2006
Conquering Small Countries is Easy
Numerous comparisons have been made between the current Iraq War and the Vietnam War, with some likening the two situations and others decrying the notion of any similarity. Some comparisons, including an analysis by Dr. Atul Gawande in the New England Journal of Medicine, show conclusively that improvements in medical technology have decreased the battlefield death rate significantly. Researching the statistics, Dr. Gawande shows that combat death rates from injury dropped from 30% during World War II to 24% during Vietnam, and to 10% in Iraq and Afghanistan. This decrease in mortality has been used to show that without modern medicine, American fatalities in Iraq would run at close to 2200 per year instead of the current 900 per year. But even at 2200 casualties per year, the Iraq conflict would pale in comparison to Vietnam, where on average 9000 American soldiers were killed each year during America’s heaviest presence (1966-1971).
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Excellent Analysis of the State of US Healthcare
I’ll digress here from my typical short-essay style to post an excellent series of articles by Dr. Richard Fogoros on the state of US healthcare. Dr. Rich does an excellent job showing how healthcare in the US is primarily government-funded, and how politicians’ inability to confront growing healthcare demand has led to covert healthcare rationing. He goes on to argue that open rationing of public resources is the only long-term approach moving forward, and proposes a system for rationing. The “Grand Unification Theory of Healthcare” is a bombastic title, and the articles are verbose, but Dr. Rich does an excellent job of addressing the topic head-on, and I agree with most of his conclusions.
The Grand Unification Theory of Healthcare, Dr. Richard N. Fogoros, MD
You can’t be Whatever You Want to be
Why do we in America constantly tell children that they can be whatever they want to be? When asked what they want to be when they grow up, large percentages of adolescent boys reply that they want to be a professional athlete. We generally encourage our children to set their aspirations high, at President or professional athlete, at Astronaut or movie star. Such aspirations are wonderful in that they challenge children to reach for lofty goals, but the reality is that a tiny percentage of us will ever attain such positions.
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True Cost - Analyzing our economy, government policy, and society through the lens of cost-benefit 